'Billions,' the new drama Wall Street is going to be obsessed with, just became Showtime's best performing premiere ever

"Billions," Showtime's new show about high-power Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers, just premiered to three million viewers, making it the network's most successful pilot of all time.

So when we ran into Andrew Ross Sorkin, the show's co-creator, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this morning, he was all smiles.

That 3 million number includes people who DVRed the episode and watched it on demand in the two weeks prior to the show's pilot, a new strategy Showtime has been using to hook viewers early in the hopes that they'll later subscribe and continue watching. Showtime used the same tactic with its hit show "The Affair."